Desert Eagle

This review contains some spoilers.

January 22, 2004. An oddly-titled movie, "Ice Cream Man", is released by Kyle Magocs. It is noticeably slightly unusual in the form that this movie is more like a music video. Ice Cream Man is relatively well-received despite a huge lack of comments. Now let's fast forward exactly eleven months. December 22, 2004. The Winter Film Festival starts, and it opens with a Kyle Magocs short, Peak, again like a music video. Peak is much more recognised and is more of a hit, receiving solid comments. Now to the present. August 8, 2005. Desert Eagle is released, yet again, as the opener of the festival, but this time the 2005 Summer one. Yes, it is another short music video film, but Magocs has steered away from the normal, and, you know what, to some extent (and I emphasize that), the risk has paid off.

You see, instead of the jolly scenarios shown in Ice Cream Man and Peak, the former following a boy pursuing a van for an ice-cream and the latter showing the reuniting of a sweet and cute couple, Desert Eagle focuses on a rather strange, mysterious island. Needless to say, the movie is darker, moodier, and directed in such a way that, for once, you actually need to think to understand what's going on, so if you are only planning on giving Desert Eagle one chance, you are taking a risk checking it out. I'm not saying it is impossible to work out what's happening first time round, it just can be a little bit tricky piecing it together, and if you really are stumped, Magocs has kindly added an explanation in the credits, which should make your second viewing more enjoyable. The tagline, “A peaceful island at day, but at night...” really should give a lot of it away.

The darker song chosen is a nice change too, instead of something rather cheerful, contributing to the bits of drama there is concerning the dodgy island. So, would I recommend Desert Eagle? Yes, but I would not go overly enthusiastic about it. While it is a refreshing change from Magocs' two other extremely bright movies, Desert Eagle does not quite live up to the splendid Peak. I did not feel Desert Eagle was wrapped up all that well, with the sun suddenly rising, and everything going back to normal for another bright day; it was a little empty. Peak however was wrapped up far better, and was capped off with a warm feeling, like a feel-good movie should do. There are also signs that Peak was superior in construction and direction, and Desert Eagle felt a little disjointed, probably not helped by the cut between the two parts of the music. Peak is just generally more solid. Maybe it is because the concept Magocs chose was harder to direct around, or maybe it is because the song itself was harder to sync to, I don't know, but personally I still think that Peak still remains to be Magocs' strongest movie.

Desert Eagle does show off some rather nice touches thanks to Superdings and v3DMM. Because of the lack of v3DMM movies currently, it makes Desert Eagle that little bit more unique, and you can't help admiring a couple of really neat scenes, such as the demon face coming out of the fire. Magocs has done well editing the Doraemon character too, and watching the result of this in 3DMM wouldn't have been possible without v3DMM. The possibilities of v3DMM, at this stage at least, seem endless. I am glad Magocs chose a darker theme this time round, to introduce more variety in the movies he makes, and I've always liked his short music-video styled films, but there is this niggling feeling that will not go away that says “this could have been done better”. I do like Desert Eagle, more than Ice Cream Man actually, but although it has a very interesting and gripping concept that does make you watch the film closely with your full attention, I cannot help feeling a little bit disappointed that it was not anything more special.

Score: 70/100